Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space company, is set to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) data centre prototype into orbit, paving the way for more efficient and secure data processing in space.
Chennai-based Agnikul Cosmos would launch the prototype of an artificial intelligence (AI) data centre in orbit by the end of this year, aiming to make it commercially viable by 2027, the space company's co-founder Srinath Ravichandran has said.
AI data centres are used to train AI models and are huge in size.
Agnikul's prototype of it will be hosted on the extendable upper stage of the rockets.
"The data centre will be used for AI inference (where a trained model is deployed to analyse new data and make predictions), which does not require as much energy and infrastructure as is needed for training a model," Ravichandran said in an interview with PTI.
While Agnikul Cosmos will launch the AI data centre, it will be developed by Bengaluru-based NeevCloud, an AI SuperCloud platform, the company announced on February 12.
With the ever-expanding use of AI, there has been a massive increase in the amount of data that needs to be stored and processed.
Global demand for data centre capacity could rise at an annual rate of between 19 per cent and 22 per cent from 2023 to 2030 to reach an annual demand of 171 GW to 219 GW, according to global management consultants McKinsey.
Since data centres are large and need an enormous amount of power and water for cooling, companies have been struggling to find places to build them, a reason why SpaceX, Google, Axiom, and others are trying to find ways to put data centres in space.
"In space, there is an availability of unlimited solar energy, and cooling is much more efficient because you are exposed to temperatures close to absolute zero Additionally, it is physically safer because it is not easy to access a data centre in orbit, which will help in keeping data confidential," Ravichandran.
The data centre launched by Agnikul Cosmos will not be a standalone satellite. Instead, there will be a constellation of satellites (or upper stages of different rockets) in low Earth orbit, each hosting different data centre modules.
"The system will work through intra-satellite and satellite-to-ground communication," Ravichandran said.
The constellation will be configured to not do heavy work during the eclipse phase - the period when it will pass through the shadow cast by the Earth, blocking direct sunlight.
"They will run in a low-power mode for tasks like transmitting data, and then switch to high-power mode during the sun-facing phase. This framework already exists for imaging satellites," Ravichandran said.
The satellites will use radiative cooling to bring down temperatures, something that Agnikul Cosmos claims to have worked on extensively. Radiative cooling is the process by which a body loses heat by thermal radiation.
Although the prototype launch at the end of 2026 will not lead to the commercialisation of the data centre, Ravichandran hopes that the mission will showcase his company's ability to build an AI data centre in space.
"From 2027, we will be in commercialisation mode, which will open up a new class of customers and significantly increase our market," Ravichandran said.